In June, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill punishing people for homosexual ‘propaganda’.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Nikolay Alexeyev, a long-time gay rights activist, journalist and lawyer and organiser of now banned Moscow Pride Parade, is arrested after a one man picket at an anti-Sochi boycott protest, outside Sochi Olympic headquarters in Moscow in September

Nikita Guryuanov, a 17-year-old gay rights activist who has been accused of spreading gay propaganda because of his YouTube show about LGBT issues. Part of his activism is to teach gay teenagers about how to protect themselves online from the likes of violent vigilante groups

Artem, a taxi driver for the gay taxi service in Moscow 'Our Taxi'. Unlike the activists he is cautious about being open with his sexual orientation.

The law imposed fines on those who disseminate information aimed at minors ‘directed and forming non-traditional sexual setup’, or which may cause a ‘distorted understanding’ that gay and heterosexual relationships are equal. Activists and celebrities have repeatedly called on Mr Putin to repeal the law but to no avail, while there have been calls to boycott Sochi.

Only on Friday, Mr Putin said that gay people would be welcome at the Olympics, but in a sign of the persecution the homosexual community is under in the country, he said: 'They must leave children in peace'.

Last week, the powerful Orthodox Church – of which approximately 64 per cent of Russians identify themselves as – demanded one step further, calling for a national referendum on criminalising homosexual relationships altogether, a return to a Soviet law enacted by Stalin.

Nix and Ray, two of Russia's core LGBT activists

An LGBT activist is unlawfully arrested after a one-man picket at an anti-Sochi boycott protest, outside the Sochi headquarters in Moscow

Nix, Ray and other LGBT activist staging an action in moscow in July 2013 to draw attention to the rise in suicides among gay teenagers since the anti-gay propaganda law was passed

‘The one reason the law was installed in the first place was to please the Orthodox majority,’ explained Milène Larsson, a UK-based journalist originally from Sweden.

‘He [Putin] is looking for enemies. In Russia, homosexuals and gay rights activists are labelled as foreign agents.

‘You have such a vast majority of people who are Orthodox who potentially feel this way, those are his voters, that he is not going to step back and say “actually gay people are ok”.'

The video highlights the abuse that homosexuals receive in the streets, with activists regularly attacked.

They have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect themselves from persecution – from both official channels and neo-Nazi vigilante groups. The gay community has their own taxi service, while there are LGBT self-defense classes. There are also videos on YouTube held by activists, such as NIkita Gurjyanov, who has teaches gay people how to protect themselves from such groups.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

Ms Larsson, who filmed the documentary along with Olga Kravets, told MailOnline that she was particularly struck by the attitudes and reaction of everyday people in the street.

‘What I was particularly struck by was talking to a random person on the street, who in a very calm voice says they can’t be like Europe, “we have our own traditional conservative values, and at the moment in Europe, they’re legalising paedophilia, they’re legalising zoophilia, they have zoo brothels”, and this guy just looked like a regular professional on the street.

There has been a rise in vigilante groups, like the neo-Nazi Occupy Pedofilyaj, that hunt down homosexuals online and make YouTube clips of how they abuse them. Here, two members of the group are humiliating a young Uzbek man

Russia's Vladimir Putin meets with volunteers taking part in the preparations for Sochi. On Friday, he said gays should feel welcome at Sochi, but must 'leave the children in peace'

‘The other thing when I felt the hatred the most, was when one of the activists Alexei Davydov passed away, and we had a funeral and a memorial, so the gay rights activists we had been following joined, and the plan (spread via social media) was to hold a minutes silence for Alexei.

‘So of course, violent homophobes and various neo-Nazi groups and orthodox thugs showed up because they heard about it. I didn’t expect this because somebody passing away is a sad moment.

'It’s not the place you expect people showing up to basically try and beat these people up. Luckily there was a heavy police presence.

‘So many violent people trying to pick fights and getting dragged away, and you could tell they were looking at me to see what side I was on, so much hatred.'